parade? I can honestly say that weekend with the agency and the events changed everything for us.
As a same-sex couple, Matthew and I had the unique opportunity to share our story of growing a family through adoption. Instead of marketing ourselves as a couple hoping to adopt, we were given a platform to promote gay couples parenting in general. There has never been a greater moment than now for us to open up about our lives. As each day passes, equal rights for LGBT individuals are growing. Now is the time for us to share and to speak. When we started the adoption process, it was our hope to expand our family with a child and now we are able to help spread the positive message of gay parenting.
When we wrote the first draft of our profile letter, it was twice as long as our agency recommended. It is very difficult to condense everything you want to say into fewer than one thousand words. Our adoption profile was approved for viewing by expecting parents the week before Christmas in 2012. At that particular time, the average waiting period for a same-sex couple was fifteen months, though we were both well aware that our wait could end up being shorter or much longer than that.
Matthew and I had decided to promote ourselves as a couple in every way possible for six months and then take a step back and evaluate our approach. Over the next couple of weeks, we had a few contacts from potential birthmothers. All of them we considered to be emotional scams. Every waiting family is aware of the risks that adoption can bring. In most cases, families get angry with these particular situations, but we chose to use them as practice experiences to get over the nerves of talking to pregnant women.
In March 2013, we received a text message on our designated adoption cell phone number. We were both just coincidentally looking at the phone when the text was received. It said, “How do you feel about twins?” We were stunned, giddy and nervous. We had always been open to the idea of twins. Over the next couple of weeks, we talked to this particular expecting mother and all three of us seemed to hit it off very well. There were so many similarities: She was a registered nurse in Labor and Delivery and liked most of the same things we did. We had several phone conversations with her and learned that she had contacted our adoption agency and that she was also speaking to another family as well. Matthew and I both felt like this was the right match for us.
This birthmother was very cautious about the adoption process and had several specific concerns. She was mostly terrified that once the adoption occurred, the adoptive parents and her twin girls would disappear. There was only one state, California, in which open adoption agreements were considered legally enforceable. In all other states, they were primarily promises.
While talking to the mother of the twins, we missed another incoming text message. Since we didn’t respond to the text within a couple of hours, we then received a call on the toll-free telephone number that was listed on our adoption profile. When someone dialed the number, Matthew and I received simultaneous calls on our personal cell phones, as well as the house phone. Needless to say, when all three phones rang at the same time, we started to panic.
This phone call was from the mother of an expecting father in Texas. She asked many questions and I felt an instant connection with her. We had come to a crossroad. Matthew and I liked both situations. The twins were due in June and the Texas baby was due in September. We decided to continue with both possibilities for the time being.
Over the next several days, we knew the Texas situation was moving fast and would probably result in a match very soon. We presented both situations to our adoption coordinator and asked for advice. It became apparent that we needed to disclose the Texas situation to the mother of the twins.
It was a very hard and emotional conversation. The mother of the twins was devastated. At that point, she was still determining whether she would parent or place her twin girls. She wanted us to parent if she chose not to, but she said it would break her heart to prevent us from matching with this other expecting couple. She insisted she would not stand in the way of us becoming dads. It was very difficult to end this potential situation, but when we received an e-mail including a sonogram photo from Mercy and Dylan, the expecting parents in Texas, we knew this was our perfect match. Mercy mentioned in the e-mail that the baby looked like a T-Rex.
Matthew and I matched with Mercy and Dylan on April 10, 2013. I still have the voicemail saved on my phone. Mercy had just entered her second trimester at that time, so we fit into the category of a long match. This meant we had the opportunity to be present for a majority of the pregnancy and build a strong foundation for our relationship that would last a lifetime.
A few weeks after we matched, it was time to determine the sex of baby T-Rex. Matthew was working the day we were supposed to find out, so I purchased two balloons: one pink and one blue. Then I waited outside of the hospital where Matthew was working. The next sixty minutes seemed to take hours. Finally, Mercy sent a wonderful text message that caught me completely off guard:
It’s a girl. YAY!
I grabbed the pink balloon, quickly entered the hospital and got in the elevator. As I exited the elevator and looked to the left, I saw Matthew working on the computer at the nurses’ station. I had the pink balloon hidden behind my back. Before he had time to say anything, I presented the balloon to him. We were able to enjoy that moment together after it had unfolded over one thousand miles away.
Soon the time came for us to travel west and meet Mercy and Dylan in person. Near the end of May, we said goodbye to our cats and flew out to Texas. Our flight arrived in Dallas and then we rented a car to make the three-hour drive to the town of Abilene.
Matthew and I dealt with a lot of stress leading up to that meeting. It seemed to escalate while driving to Abilene. We were overly excited and nervous to meet the expecting mother and father for the first time. The moments leading up to the meeting felt like a first date after building a foundation of communication with them over the past month.
A counselor from our agency was there to facilitate the match meeting. He had reserved the children’s activity room at a library for everyone to get together, but there was not much about this exceptionally large space that indicated either children or activity. It was full of six-foot tables and chairs and did not have that small, quaint feeling we had hoped for. Matthew and I picked a table in the middle of the room and allowed our anticipation and nerves to grow even more.
Before long, we heard a library representative tell someone, “The activity room is located in the back.” Mercy and Dylan were here. I’m pretty sure Matthew and I both stopped breathing. As the expecting mother and father seated themselves across from us, Matthew quickly stated what I think everyone was feeling: “I know we are all extremely nervous.” With that, the ice had been broken. Questions were then posed to both couples and with each answer the meeting seemed to get more and more comfortable.
Thirty minutes quickly turned into an hour and a half. During that time, we learned about Mercy and Dylan both as individuals and as a couple. Looking back on the match meeting, all of the stress left as we said goodbye to the counselor and began our weekend in Abilene with Mercy and Dylan. I’m thankful for those anxieties, though, as they allowed us to be aware of this truly memorable moment and made us more prepared for the spectacular time that was in our near future.
Over the next few days, Matthew and I were welcomed into an energetic, funny and loving family. We were able to spend time with parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins. Each and every one of them made an extra effort to show their support for us as a couple and the potential adoptive parents of their future daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter, niece and cousin. We listened to stories and told a few of our own. A couple of the stories were somewhat embarrassing, but we learned about Mercy and Dylan’s family and they learned about us. There was a lot of laughter all around. Some family members commuted from hours away and everyone made sure they had ample time off from work to meet and support Mercy, Dylan, Matthew and me. We felt so welcomed and loved by this family and were extremely excited to merge them with ours.
The final night was marked by an epic family barbeque—Texas style, complete with cloth napkins, table decorations and a metal T-Rex sculpture. The menu included brisket, baby back ribs, sausage and jalapeño peppers stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon and then grilled to perfection. The evening was certainly a celebration,